Trollaigh Tango Beat

09/15/2005

In actual fact Saturday evening progresses without much permanent damage. We three old codgers are left in peace to play a few ends of billiards and sample an Ardbeg or two while dinner wears on, our absence un-noticed. After the ladies retire to the first floor drawing room, we hear music strike up rather than the usual bad tempered arguments from the men left with the Tesco’s Port. I wander down to the dinning room to discover that the younger element have taken over the long gallery for dancing and proceed to take the floor for the Trollaigh Jig in a set of four with our two daughters and Lachie. As we all know it backwards we put on a good exhibition, much applauded by our guests whose numbers are rising, attracted by the music. It is a fair night, so I set off for a four-mile tramp with the dogs on the riverbank looking for poachers. As I return, I sense a change in mood and come across the dancers on dearest Dottie’s sacred lawn to the beat and tempo of Latin America. Lachie is getting rather too close to The Boat of Garten; however, I am pleased to see that madam SNH has teamed up with Lord Watson who looks extremely dishevelled, hopefully sans matches. I retire to a warm Great Bed of Trollaigh with the Tango beat rising from the garden, quite pleasant really. The start of the week brings mixed weather and hard work as on Wednesday Lachie and I intend to cut off fuel supplies to the village pump in protest against rising prices. There are some reports of panic buying, Mrs MacDougall has been spotted topping off her tank at least a month early, and allegedly, a stranger from Oban detoured for £5’s worth. I have to chuckle when I read a notice on the village board encouraging classes in “Smoking Cessation”, why must people spend days working on pointless phrases when for generations we have been urged to “stop” or “give up” smoking quite happily? Even the grammar of such nonsense is debatable; last week a BT engineer informed me that a line in the glen “had been ceased”. Must be my age! Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.